Purely pets insurance - yes or no?

[Holly Hocks]

I've just had my dog's insurance renewal through. He is 12 in April and has only ever had one claim for arthritis and the total cost of that was about £500 for x-rays and 12 months of metacam. That was some years ago - we now pay for the metacam ourselves.
The renewal quote has come through - £30 per month for a medium sized mongrel - and that is with an excess of £75 + 20% of anything extra with only 12 months cover per condition.
I've just been on Go Compare and there is a company called Purely Pets which comes up quite cheap - just wondered if anyone had any experience of them and whether they are a company to avoid for any reason.
Many Thanks

 

[Rose Folly]

In view of your dog's age, have you considered putting aside a sum of money each month in lieu of insurance? Then at least the money is yours until it's needed. Of course you can be badly caught out if the dog develops something nasty in the first few months, but we do this with our elderly dogs, and when one of them had a big £1000 op recently we could cope with it. You can always put the money into Premium Bonds instead of a savings account to give yourself a bit of fun on the side.